


Stephen's Story

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [9]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Attempted Murder, Backstory, Baseball, Bigotry & Prejudice, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Crawford-Tokash Act, Discrimination, Fix-It, Gen, Injury, Propaganda, Psi Corps, Scotland, Slice of Life, Teenagers, The Corps Was Right, The Psi Corps tag is mine, Violence, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 03:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10324169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Stevie Campbell nervously wrung his hands backstage. Five minutes till his entrance on the DiPeso show, watched by millions - maybe even billions - across the world.He could hear the comedian cracking jokes for his opening monologue.Something was wrong.Very wrong.Deadly wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> This chapter illustrates the implications of Crawford's bans on telepaths and sport, as mentioned in Mini History Lesson 1 [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10292036). Though baseball wasn't on the initial ban list, it can be inferred that within short order, telepaths were barred from playing all competitive sports (outside the Corps, that is).
> 
> A special thank you to Leo X. Robertson for beta reading this for dialect authenticity!
> 
> This story contains excerpts from _Dark Genesis_. I have switched the point of view character from Lee Crawford to Stephen Campbell, and made minor edits along the way for flow and clarity. Quotations on the DiPeso show are directly from canon.

Los Angeles. July, 2117.

            Stevie Campbell nervously wrung his hands backstage. Five minutes till his entrance on the DiPeso show, watched by millions - maybe even billions - across the world.

            He could hear the comedian cracking jokes for his opening monologue.

            Something was wrong.

            Very wrong.

_Deadly wrong._

            "... so he says, how does a telepath feed a dog? And I said, pretty well, if you grind him up fine enough!"

            The crowd howled with laughter. Stevie watched as the comedian reclined on a couch, holding his martini glass like he owned the whole world and didn't give a shit who lived or died.

            A few "boos" came from the audience, but they were of the "what a bad joke" variety.

            Stevie looked around nervously. There was no backing out now.

            DiPeso moved on to a few equally tasteless jokes about sex. _Telepaths and sex._

            Stevie squirmed. The producers had assured him - and his parents - that he was invited to the show to tell his story, to help educate the public. They had assured the family that despite DiPeso's usual coarse - even controversial - style, this show would be different: this time, the show would be sensitive. An Earth Alliance senator had personally arranged for this segment to happen. He wanted to humanize telepaths, so the public could better empathize with them. He wanted to _stop_ the violence.

            It seemed that DiPeso didn't get the script.

            Stevie waited in the wings as DiPeso introduced the senator, and made even  _more_ tasteless jokes about telepaths and sex. Then an actress, Anna Keck, spoke briefly. Some bird his mum liked. They played the trailer for her new movie - about a drunk couple arguing and driving across America. Yuck. Who cared?

            Ms. Keck told the audience that she had no idea she was a "telepath" until the test came back positive.

            "I didn't know until I took the new screening test. I always knew I was good at understanding people - at knowing how they felt - but I've never heard words or anything. Most telepaths can't, really - it's a false stereotype. I can't read your mind, Alex."

            "Well, thank Buddha for small favors. Whew. 'Cause I'm sure there must be some sort of law. Well, this is-"

            "This isn't about me," Anna interrupted. "We still have a segment for that, right? Because I do want to talk about _Arkansas Traveler_. But first I'd like to let the senator introduce everyone else."

            One of the stagehands signaled to Stevie - and the others - that this was their cue to enter.

            They stepped out into the blinding lights. Saw the hundreds - thousands? - in the studio audience.

            And the cameras. The whole world was watching.

            Stevie's mouth was dry. He'd carefully rehearsed his speech many times, but what if he forgot it? And what if his still-changing voice broke into a squeak?

            All eyes were on him and the others. This was his big moment. He gathered up his courage. He was doing this for the greater good, he reminded himself, so no one else would ever have to go through what he went through.

            The host turned to the first in line - a lad in his twenties who walked with a limp.

            "Well, by all means - but I think I know this young man," DiPeso was saying, gesturing at the young fellow with the Apollonian profile. "Aren't you that fireman...?"

            The senator smiled like a snake, if one could smile. Oily. Stevie knew that look. That was the look the salesman gave his father before selling him a rubbish groundcar.

            The senator clapped the young man on the shoulder, with a broad, false grin. "This is Guy Guillory," he told DiPeso. "Most of your viewers will remember him as the young man who saved thirty people in the San Francisco earthquake last year. Guy came to us voluntarily when - well, I'll get to that in a moment. Guy's telepathic ability enabled him to find those trapped on the collapsed sixth floor of Trombles. I might add that Guy is just now able to walk again - his body was covered with third-degree burns on his fifth trip in, two trips after the building caught fire."

            Guy nodded nervously. He opened his mouth to speak, but the senator patted him on the back and talked right past him.

            The senator moved down the line to another woman in her twenties or so, a slight blonde with a pleasant, but not beautiful, face. "This is Clara Suarez," said the senator. "She used to be a stock trader until she voluntarily quit when she learned she had metasensory powers. She now uses her abilities for the International Trade Commission to find less honest telepaths still tradin'."

            He didn't let her speak, either. He moved onto Stevie.

            "Stephen Campbell. Stephen didn't know he was a telepath either, just that he had a lot of luck hittin' what the pitcher threw. Steven was beaten within an inch of his life and left to die on the street in Edinburgh. And this - come here, sweetheart."

            Just like that, it was over. Stevie wasn't going to get to speak, was he?

            He looked out at the audience. He felt like a mannequin on display in the shop window, or an animal at the zoo.

            The senator motioned to the five-year-old girl who was last in line. The audience let out a collective "awww!" as the little girl with the cute brown bob ran right over to the senator and into his arms, like he was her favorite uncle.

            "This is Constance," said the senator. "Constance is five, and last year she watched her whole family slaughtered execution style. She herself was shot, hacked with a machete, and left for dead. We found her under the corpse of her mother."

 _Who is 'we'?_ Stevie wondered. The senator kept talking about a "we." He doubted the senator himself had found her. Either way, he'd somehow got that poor wee lass to trust him completely, like some stranger offering candy.

            Stevie didn't like it one bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Excerpt from _A Modern Reader for Children_ , Ministry of Public Information, Earth Alliance, 2116. With special thanks to the Senator Lee Crawford, the Senate Committee on Technology and Privacy, and the Committee on Metasensory Regulation.

 

            _A boy and his father are gathering mushrooms in the forest. The father explains that some mushrooms are good to eat, while others are poisonous._

_"People, too, are like mushrooms," the father explains to his son. "Like the mushrooms, there are good people, and there are bad people. We must always remain on guard against the bad ones."_

_"I understand," says the boy. "If we eat poisonous mushrooms, we could die. If we associate with bad people, we'll get nothing but trouble!"_

_"Exactly right," the father replies. "There are many kinds of bad people in the world - there are those who cheat, and lie, and steal, and who use violence to hurt others. But do you know who the most dangerous people are?"_

_The boy doesn't have to think very long. "That's easy!" he exclaims. "We learned this in school! Why, telepaths, of course!"_

_The father praises son for his prudence. "And do you know why?"_

_"They're not natural, that's why," replies the boy confidently. "To be around a telepath is like having someone take all your clothes off, right in public! You have no privacy at all!"_

_"However they disguise themselves," says the father, "or how friendly they pretend to be, they are still telepaths. No matter how much they claim not to be not using their powers, none can ever be trusted. With just a thought, they can steal anything from you. Some can even kill you with a thought! That's why they're dangerous to society, just like poison mushrooms. Only one telepath is all it takes to destroy a family, a village, a company, or even a whole city!"_

_The boy shudders. "But how can we tell who is a telepath?"_

_"They look just like you and me, like good folk, and that's what makes them so dangerous. But there is a way to find them, now, thanks to science. The Senate Committee on Technology and Privacy has approved a test."_

_"Oh, I remember now!" says the boy. "We were all tested in school. They took a cheek swab. It didn't hurt at all."_

_"Everyone should be tested," says the father, "not just children. Once the whole world has been tested, telepaths won't be able to hide anymore. They won't be able to hurt anyone."_

_"Like poison mushrooms!" exclaims the boy. "But father, do all good people know about the telepath problem?"_

_The father shakes his head. "No, and so it is our duty to educate them! Like poisonous mushrooms, telepaths spring up everywhere, in every nation on Earth. They come in every color, every religion, every ethnic group! Only by testing everyone everyone can we save the world from ruin. You must make sure everyone you know has been tested, and don't play with them until then!"_

_"And what happens to the telepaths?" asks the boy. "They never asked to be born that way."  
_

_"The government will make sure they only use their powers to help society," the father replied, with a smile. "In this way the glorious social, economic and technological progress of the Earth Alliance will be even more glorious!"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene adapted from actual Nazi propaganda [here](http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/story2.htm).
> 
> Crawford himself says pretty much the same things in other canon contexts. I just wrote it as a children's story.


	3. Chapter 3

            Stevie Campbell once was the star hitter of his youth baseball team.

            He'd been playing ball since he was only five, starting with T-ball and moving up to baseball two years later. His grandparents still didn't understand the latest craze about baseball - they still followed only football and rugby - but Stevie wanted to be a baseball star. By twelve, when many of the other boys had given up and moved on to other sports or clubs, he was developing into one of the best players ever to come through their league. His hand-eye coordination was extraordinary, and though he wasn't very tall, he was a fast runner.

            Aside from school, baseball was his life.

            What should have been a serious career - maybe even a shot at the Majors - ended suddenly in the spring of 2116, when the EA Ministry for Sport and Recreation issued a guidance that made testing for the so-called "telepathy gene" mandatory for youth sport participation. Anyone who tested positive would be automatically registered in the new telepath "database," and barred from certain competitive sports. Baseball wasn't on the list - yet.

            The boys complained - there were no telepaths in their league, they insisted. The coaches agreed - the whole thing was silly, but it was the law. The league couldn't afford to lose funding by refusing to test the boys.

            So they lined up, and one by one the coach took a cheek swab and put it into a steel cylinder, and then put the cylinder into a black box.[1] Negative, negative negative.

            Positive.

            Everyone looked at Stevie like he'd sprouted a second head.

            "That's rubbish!" Stevie exclaimed. "Aye right! I don't believe it!"

            The coach did the test again, to be certain. Again, it came back positive.

            Nothing made sense to Stevie. He certainly didn't have any "powers" like they always described in the public service announcements on television. Were they trying to say he'd develop these powers when he was older?  Or was this some mistake? There was rumor going around that you'd be a telepath if your mother was one, but his mother wasn't, nor was his grandmother.

            Someone suggested that maybe he had powers, and that's why he was so good at baseball. He denied it, tempers flared, and soon the coach had to break up a fight.

            Whatever the test meant, the coach told the team, no one really knew, except that Stevie could no longer play.

            "There has to be someone we can call," Stevie's father offered that night, trying to console his distraught son. But while he was searching for the right office, the right department, whoever handled this mess in the Earth Alliance bureaucracy, word got out on the street about Stevie's results.

            He'd always been bullied by some of the boys in his school, usually for being a ginger. And his hair was as ginger as it got. Now those same boys were saying that he was "too good" at baseball, that he had some sort of evil powers and had been cheating all along. One day after school they jumped him, tied him to a chain-link fence, and took turn pummeling him till he lost consciousness. Other boys and girls saw the attack, even some of Stevie's classmates - but despite his pleas for help, none moved an inch to assist. They stood and stared, or walked silently on.

            He awoke days later in hospital, with broken arms, legs, ribs, and a smashed in face. He couldn't walk, even with support, for several weeks, and didn't leave the hospital for over a month. Then came more months of rehab, and reconstructive work on his face. He was in constant pain. One way or the other, he now knew, his dreams of professional baseball were over.

            His school didn't know what to do with him - they agreed to let him stay, so long as he took all his exams in a separate room, away from all the other students. They didn't want him to "cheat," the school told his parents. Stevie didn't want to go back, and risk getting assaulted again. His original attackers had been arrested, he knew, but no one at school could promise he would safe from the other students, especially on his way to and from school. His parents were doing their best to educate him at home, but it was a daily struggle, especially with all of his frequent medical appointments.

            Then came the DiPeso show. The producers reached out to the family and told Stevie's parents that they were seeking stories of exceptional young people who were discovered to be telepaths, young people who had survived terrible violence. DiPeso was going to do a "special" on these young people, they said - to reach out to the public and educate them about who telepaths really were - ordinary people like everyone else. They offered to cover all of Stevie's substantial medical bills, and to pay the family's travel expenses to Los Angeles. So six months later, Stevie and his parents were on a transport.

[1] Gregory Keyes, Dark Genesis, p. 60


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story contains excerpts from Dark Genesis. I have switched the point of view character from Lee Crawford to Stephen Campbell, and made minor edits along the way for flow and clarity. Quotations are directly from canon.

            The senator held the wee lass like she was a living doll. She whispered something into his ear.

            "She wants to know if she can sit by you, Alex," he told the DiPeso.

            "I- Yes, of course. I never turn a lady down."

            The actress, Anna Keck, gave the little girl a hug as she ran across the stage. Then she made her way to the host's big couch, and plopped her wee self down on top of it. Stevie, and the rest of the audience, could see the visible scars on her forehead, ear and neck.

            "Hello, Constance," said the host. "What do you think of Los Angeles?"

            "You're a nice man," she said. "I can tell you're a nice man. How come you say such mean things?"

            Well, no one knew what to say to that. A silence fell over the studio, and stretched on far longer than it should have. DiPeso was trying to speak, but he genuinely had no idea what to say.

            Then he was _crying_.

            "I don't know, honey," he said. "I can't explain it, can I?"

            The producers cut to commercial break and whisked him off the stage. Moments later, they came for Stevie and the others as well.

*****

            "You can watch the rest of the show from the Green Room," they told him.

            "I wis goin' tae tell ma story!" he exclaimed. "Ye promised I could tell ma story!"

            "There's been a change of plans," they said.

            Stevie didn't think they ever intended to let him tell his story. They'd intended to have him stand there while the others did the talking, but then Constance did... whatever she did and suddenly, letting "telepaths" stand on stage became a liability to the ratings. DiPeso might go off-script and become _nice_.

            He cursed quietly to himself. It was pure shan, it was.

            But then it went from bad to worse.

            "Okay, we're back," Stevie watched DiPeso say, from the screen in the Green Room, "and we're still talking to Senator Lee Crawford of the Committee on Metasensory Regulation. Frankly, I planned to have moved him off by now and brought someone entertaining on, but during the break he told me he had something important to tell us. So I think I'll just shut up for a moment and see what it is."

            Someone was lying, Stevie decided. Which way was it? Had DiPeso intended to end the telepath segment right there - so he could move on to someone more "entertaining" - or had he planned all along to give the senator all the time? While Stevie and the others stood in the background, like props?

            And what the hell was this "Committee on Metasensory Regulation?" Stevie wondered. Were they the same folks who made his youth league test all the boys for that "telepath gene?" Was it this senator whose new "rules" had gotten Stevie banned from baseball in the first place?

            A chill went through him. They'd paid all his medical bills. Had this all been a set-up?

            The senator nodded. "Thank you, Alex. I first want to thank you and your audience for giving me the chance to show you these special young people. Look, the face of the unknown is the face of a monster, and for most people telepathy is unknown. It's frightenin'. In our hearts, I think we all know that that doesn't excuse some of the things that have happened - certainly not the way people like Constance and Stephen have been treated. So I wanted to show you the face of the unknown, so you can see that there is no monster, no alien, just us.

            "Now, my committee has gotten a lot of criticism from both ends of the spectrum. I've been criticized for takin' away the rights of telepaths - an untrue accusation - and for not bein' 'hard enough' on them, which I'm happy to say is true. They don't deserve punishment simply for bein' born different. But they are different, aren't they - if not in most ways, then in this one special way."

            He clasped his hands. "I'm being long-winded, so I'll try to get to the point, because I know you all want to hear more from Anna and the other guests Alex has lined up tonight. The point is this: over the past year or so, I've had contact with a lot of telepaths, and one thing I know is that most of them have a strong desire to serve, to use their powers not for the good of themselves, not for the good of a single nation, but for the good of all humanity."

            "Bollocks!" shouted Stevie at the screen. "I just wanted to play baseball!"

            His father hushed him.

            "To that end," the senator was saying, "I would like to announce that the president has given me the go-ahead to form a new government organization, made up of telepaths like Anna, Guy, Stephen, Clara, and Constance. We're all agreed that this is the best, most sensitive way to handle both the needs of telepaths and of the world at large. What people are really afraid of is not telepaths, I'm convinced, but the fear of not knowing who is a telepath."

            Stevie could barely believe his ears. Those lads hadn't beaten him within an inch of his life because they were afraid of some _hypothetical_ telepath - they hadn't malkied him because they _didn't know_ he was a telepath, but because they _did_. This senator didn't want to stop the violence, as the show's producers had claimed - he actually wanted to make it worse.

            "Most of us don't mind bein' naked, so to speak," the senator was now saying, "but we don't want just anyone seeing us naked without our consent. The MRA - Metasensory Regulation Authority - will prevent that. We can identify seventy percent of all telepaths medically, but I think most people who know that they are telepaths will come to the MRA of their own free will, where they can be useful without fear of persecution."

            Now it was clear. This had been a set-up, indeed.

            "But what about those who don't want to join?" DiPeso asked.

            "Well, naturally there will be some who want to continue with their normal lives. I'm happy to announce that Halotech has developed a new drug that shows great promise in inhibiting psionic abilities. It's still in the testing stage, but it looks good and, once approved, will be offered as an option for telepaths who want to preserve a normal lifestyle. Beyond that - well, there are criminals in every demographic. Just as in any group of people you choose to look at, there will be some minor fraction who simply have no social conscience, who will always take the easy way out. This is not a trait of telepaths, my friends - it is a trait common to humanity.

            "However, as you might imagine, telepaths present special problems in incarceration. Because of this, we've proposed a set of separate rehabilitation facilities specially designed for the needs of telepaths, which will be overseen by MRA - which will, of course, all be overseen in turn by the Earth Alliance Senate. In short, it's high time that people step back and see what's being done."

            Stevie could see what was being done, plainly enough. Not only had this rat of a senator got him malkied in the first place, he'd tricked Stevie into standing on television in front of millions, maybe billions. Now everyone would know who he was, and what he was. There wasn't a damn place he and his family could hide, now. Anyone, anywhere, could be coming for them - unless he joined this senator's new "Authority..." _and maybe even then, too._

            The senator didn't care what Stevie wanted. He certainly didn't care to hear what Stevie had to say. He'd only wanted a "sob story" to justify his new "Authority."

            "The Earth Alliance is the first true world government," the senator was saying, with one of his broad-faced grins, "and in just over thirty years look what we've accomplished. We have thrivin' colonies on the Moon, plans to move on to Mars, and we've detected what might be the first real murmurings of an alien civilization. All it took for those things was a little faith, a lot of ingenuity, and sweat.

            "It's the same with the so-called telepath problem. In a hundred years, people will look back at this as the beginnin' of somethin' wonderful." He spread his hands. "Of course, this is all pendin' Senate approval, so if you like what you hear today, I urge you to message your senator."

*****

            Stevie and his family traveled back to Edinburgh. Within months, they watched with fear and dismay as Senator Crawford's MRA legislation passed, and was signed into law by the president, to much media fanfare.

            Crawford was some sort of _hero_.

            The rules of the new "Authority" required all telepaths to wear black leather gloves and a psi insignia when out in public.

            "I won't dress like that!" Stevie screamed. "They'll kill me!"

            Stevie and his parents stayed up late that night, trying to decide what do to. They were still arguing when a brick came flying through their window.


End file.
